College places the responsibiity of success on each individual student.
College differs from high school in many ways. You pay for enrollment in each individual college course, whereas most high school courses are free. You are promptly dropped from college courses if you miss too many classes, whereas high school teachers tend to be more lax with attendance. Overall, college classes require you to embrace a new level of self-motivation, discipline, and hard work. In order to ace a college class, you need to budget your time and incorporate effective and consistent study habits.
Instructions
1. Purchase all of your required textbooks prior to attending your first class, so you do not fall behind on your first assignment. Bring a notebook and pen to your first class, so you do not miss important information on deadlines, extra credit and classroom etiquette.
2. Use your syllabus to mark important assignment deadlines on your calendar. Work backward from each deadline to set smaller project goals for yourself, which ensure that you never need to cram at the last minute for a test or stay up all night writing a sub-par paper the night before it is due. Steady and consistent work on any assignment produces a high-quality result; schedule one hour of study and homework time for each credit hour of your class. If you are earning three credits for a course, you need to be studying or working on assignments at least three hours outside of class per week.
3. Complete your reading assignments before each new class. Dartmouth College suggests digesting textual information via a technique called "The Three R's." First, read and re-read each paragraph until you can answer the question, "What did the author say in this paragraph?" Second, record the information you have learned by writing it down in a notebook, in your text margins, or by highlighting and underlining key passages. Third, recite what you have learned from each paragraph aloud, without referring to the text or your written notes. Do this with each assigned reading and your in-class comprehension of the subject matter will help you impress the professor and ace the college class.
4. Stay alert and take notes in every class. Highlight information that the professor indicates may be on a test. Re-write your notes as soon as you get home, as a way to internalize the information. File your notes in a binder, in chronological order. Take a few minutes at the start of each study session to review the notes you have taken from past lectures to keep the information fresh in your mind.
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